Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom -- 1984

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(1984)

PG for violence, horror, voodoo, sexual references
My Rating 2 Stars

Harrison Ford
Kate Capshaw
Amrish Puri
Roshan Seth
Philip Stone
Ke Huy Quan

My least favorite Indiana Jones movie... but there were some aspects of it that I really enjoyed. For instance, his child side-kick. He's so funny and cute... a wonderful actor.

Summary:
Indiana Jones has just delivered a diamond to a customer and the customer just happens be a villain. Indy escapes with his life but just barely. But he also grabbed his customer's show girl (Kate Capshaw), a true blonde. She becomes his curse from that day forward, until they kiss in the end.

Of course.

Due to foul circumstances, the escape plane is going down and Indiana Jones and crew have to bale out with a rubber raft since the parachutes walked out with the same guys that emptied the gas tanks. After a wild adventure of landing, using said raft as a sled, going over a cliff, down a waterfall and life comes to a relative standstill, they find they have landed somewhere in India.

They are found and led to a village who have been robbed of their magic, the Ankara Stone, which is the protection the people have from evil. Along with the stone, their children were all taken from them. They all point to the palace on a high hill as the place of great evil. They ask Indiana Jones if he will help them. He says yes, to his lady-friend's dismay.

When they reach the palace, they find an adventure beyond their wildest imaginations.  But the trio are made welcome, fed a meal and given a place to sleep. Indiana Jones wonders if he is looking for trouble in the wrong place. But his suspicions are tripled with the meeting of the child emperor that rules the kingdom. The young boy seems strangely aloof... disoriented; not a child at all. But it is when an assassin enters his quarters and tries to strangle him that Indy realizes he is really onto something. He begins to investigate in earnest and discovers that an ancient and evil religious sect has revived under the guidance of an evil priest. The missing children are slaves in the mines below the castle but one by one, they are drugged and used for human sacrifices and helpers to the priests.

In the middle of his investigations, Indy failed to realize the only time bad guys aren't around is when you're walking straight into a trap. This time, Indiana Jones needs help and only his sidekick knows what to do.

What I Liked:
1: The theology was not quite as bad this time. :-)
2: How when a religious sect works, children (the innocents) are among the first to be hurt or put in bondage.
3: The kid. Good actor. :-)
4: Of all the special effects, the ceremony of the temple is the best done. I must say that I enjoyed watching it, in spite of how evil and horrible it was. What helped with that aspect was the fact that they were not promoting idol worship or the religious cult. It is evil and they were showing it for how evil it was.

What I Didn't Like:
1: Indy's lady-friend. She was so coarse and so stupid. Lol. Poor Indy. He ends up with the worst of women. Always. Also note how poorly dressed she is most of the time.
2: A lot of the special features were very obvious. I wasn't impressed with the quality of this movie.
3: The sexual references. It didn't help the story at all.
4: A lot of the action is very unrealistic. I never forgot I was watching a movie with this one!